It's 9pm
And it's cloudy again
My demons are not what you have
But what you have is not what you want
Because you just go around and flaunt
But I'm just trying to be me
Why can't anyone see
I'm tired of fighting this world alone
Tired of going to bed with God on the phone
I need thirty more minutes of sleep
I need to find me
But too much static on this channel
And then there's him with his **** flannel
Why do I do this to me and to you
I'm sure you're missing me too
But just don't know what I've been going through
The sky is dark blue now
Don't be scared anymore my friend
It's just a frown

I was afraid to put that next cigarette to my lips
For fear of washing away that lingering taste
It wasn’t the 7000 chemicals from the smoke
It wasn’t the 70 some cancer causing agents
It wasn’t the carbon monoxide, nicotine, tar, arsenic, ammonia, freon, cyanide, or the acetone
No it was you
It was the lingering taste of you
and your cherry red lips
It was the taste from where your lips pressed on mine
Completing my puzzle
That taste I’ve been chasing since the tenth month twenty first day of seventh grade
And if you add ten and twenty one you get thirty one
And if you flip that you get thirteen
Thats how old I was when I first kissed you
It had been a dare
And back then my ****** lips
Did not know about poison
My christian lips
Did not know how addicting you were
My collar bones were unexplored land discovered by your wondering hands
My chest was a new world after you
And now standing here
Standing still
Watching you walk away
I put the next cigarette to my lips
And try to chain smoke my way over you

Alright.
So you wanna know how to write
a poem.
Well, before we do anything else
I want you to take your pencil,
and break it against your desk.
You’re not gonna need it.
Go to your kitchen
grab a glass mixing bowl, and
pour as many prompts into that bowl
as you see fit.
Maybe crack open a rhyme or two,
cause trust me,
you’ve got time
to watch this poem come to life
inside your mind.
Next, add two cups
of melted controversy
cause hey, you gotta keep people talkin’
and talkin’ and talkin’
cause if you don’t, they’ll be walkin’ away
from that scoop of insane sifted
alliterations you were stocking up on.
Maybe to give it a little zest,
even if it doesn’t make sense
to anyone but you,
throw some “quotes” around
a song lyric or two,
cause you are in charge of this.
So, carry on my wayward son,
my angel with  shotgun,
mix it up
and let it bake on the tip of your tongue
and then
spit it out.

Sit back and over-analyse
the lies that you were serving my mind.
Providing a way to relate
and trying not to overcompensate
for my lack of you,
I should have known you’d
***** and moan enough that
in time,
I could make your whines rhyme.
(Maybe that’s why your speaker points
were always the lowest.)
In this debate,
rate my way and rate of diction,
because truth is stranger than fiction
I sigh
cause I’m lying through my teeth
when I say “I’m okay”.
Sit back and wait for
what you think you have to say
We wager away our
bad experiences,
nearing another night of searing
dreaming
playing make-believe
with a ballpoint pen.
Remember the way all this started
with an oration and the weight
of what came to be a bad break up
make up
break up
wake up
to a world where you two don’t fit together.
Force your cracks into each others’
like broken heirlooms
Shake off the dust,
Can’t shake the thought that you’d be happier
without me.
I can’t see through this cloud of doubt without
an explanation,
an answer to the chance
that I can’t distinguish
the morning dew from her rose petals
that she tried to drown you in
from your tears.
“If this ain’t love
then how do we get out?”
Get out of this mess,
regress back into an obsession
with death,
and destruction,
let me provide some instruction
on obstructing these thoughts
that threaten to consume
what I assume is your last shred
of sanity.

Every generation
has the leaders and the followers.
The popular kids and the geeks,
the kids who get high on the streets
and the kids who get high on cloud nine.
The artists and the poets,
the skaters, the stoners,
the musicians and the actors,
and we all have the kids
who are all of the above.
We all have the kids
who are none of the above.
Times change, yes
and trends come and go
but don’t tell me that I’m exceptional
not because of what I know
but because of the children
that surround me.
Don’t tell me to speak my dreams
and release my strife in the form of rhyme
because “few others you know do it”.
Passion is limitless,
passion is ageless
and while I’m being raised
in a generation of technology
and dramatic social media,
yolo and swag, pregnant teens
and 55-hour marriages-
I’m growing up
in a generation of artists,
a generation of dreamers,
a generation of doers,
and a generation
of freethinkers.
Freethinkers whose words
drip from their tongues like honey
and stain their pages in the world
like wine.
Students who get bored
with teachers wanting them to think
in 1’s and 0’s,
fit into standards,
speak in slanders
and begin to hyperventilate
because they can’t translate
what they think.
Kids who haven’t forgotten
that breathing in binary isn’t healthy.
Apparently, those that find
enough creative destruction in life to cheat the system
are going against the greater public’s
better judgement,
feeling free to sit and glare
at those who swear that they’re normal,
but I’m not growing up with those kids.
People who sit back and cry crocodile tears
for those who don’t know
what to think of themselves,
sitting back and laughing
at those who shudder and shake
at the thought of being caught in between
different sides of their minds
that they don’t know it’s okay to have…
but I’m not growing up with those people.
I’m growing up in a
group of rebels,
a group that will one day
run the nation-
a nation of tenacious activists,
wearing their minds
more professionally than
politicians wear their suits-
and with better ideas.
Because we have voices,
we have pens,
but most important
we have ideas,
ideas that can change the world,
change the world more
than poker-faced suits
and hate commercials
and picket signs
ever could.

They say 'burn your bridges'
But mine have been burning from the start
They say 'give a little love'
But I can't find that part of my heart
They give you advice they say you'll never follow
And follow it you won't
But why's the truth so hard to swallow
When accepting it, you don't